Quiet Life

Vincenzo Cabianca (1827-1902), a pupil of Giovanni Caliari at the school of painting Accademia Cignaroli in Verona, moved to Tuscany in 1853. The contact with the artists of the Caffè Michelangelo, the centre of Florence's cultural life, led him to experiment with "macchia" painting, to which he made an emblematic contribution in the following years through paintings characterised by a strong use of light and violent chromatic contrasts. Between 1860 and 1880 the painter travelled frequently to Italy and Europe, concentrating on interpreting the truth of nature and the phenomenon of light, as the painting "Quiet Life" testifies. After 1880 his works, in which the symphonies of the whites generating so much light in the dark shadows are unforgettable, were enriched with an intimate poetic sense and a tenuous romantic veil, which was accentuated in the last years of his painting activity.